Today's students are living and studying in an increasingly technological age. Computers, mobile devices, and Internet communication are virtually ubiquitous in modern society. Today's classrooms are no exception. More and more, today's schools are equipped with Internet access in the classroom, be it by way of wired (typically Ethernet) or wireless (typically Wi-Fi) connections. In an example scenario, a given school may connect to the outside world (e.g., to the Internet) by way of a firewalled network access server (NAS), which may in turn provide connectivity to computers on various floors, in various classrooms, in various computer labs, in various offices or other administrative locations, and the like.
Whether in a classroom, in a computer lab, or perhaps at a remote location (e.g., doing homework at home in the evening), a student may access technological educational tools in a number of different ways and via a number of different types of devices. The student may interact with an installed application and/or webpages via a web browser, as examples. The device may be a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop computer, a desktop computer, and/or the like.
Among other purposes, technological educational tools are used in order to effectively teach students and also in order to better prepare those students for the increasingly technological world in which they are growing up and which they are studying in preparation of joining. It is important that technological educational tools are a net positive in the classroom: they should add to the teacher's ability to effectively convey concepts, assign tasks, and assess progress; they should not inefficiently bog down the educational process with cumbersome and inefficient implementations. Technology in the classroom and generally as part of educating students is not necessarily a good in and of itself; it has to be done well.